Growing Up

I don't have a whole lot of thoughts tonight, except around my little girl pup. Perdi finally seems to be growing up...or at least maturing a little bit. I have noticed this mostly in the past week. I still don't trust her to be out of my sight for very long, but this week, whenever I realized I couldn't see/hear her and went to find out what she was up to, I would mostly find her either chewing quietly on a bone or sleeping in her kennel! *Long sigh of relief*
Also, Perdi did us a big favor and let us sleep in as long as we wanted this weekend; another sign that she is growing up. Granted, one of us still has to get up and let them out early in the morning, but Perdi has been quite content to hop back in to bed and settle down for some more sleep. *Another long sigh of relief*
I am happy to see her moving out of puppyhood. She has put us through quite a lot the past few months. (Many of our lamps are out of commission due to chewed and severed cords, for example.) She still has her aggravating moments, but I have found that they are gradually becoming less frequent. She is also doing quite well with her leash, now that I have been leash walking them in the evenings. However, today I braved the dog park once again...
Speaking of the dog park, I must share a quick story. Currently, there is a four foot deep trench of water that has been carved from all the snow melt and rain runoff from Cherry Creek to a small lake in the dog park. Today, it was probably only half full of water, but still running pretty furiously. Pongo and Perdi and I were walking past the trench on our way back to the car. I had my iPod on and was whistling along to a song when I heard a big SPLASH. Apparently, Perdi had tried to jump the trench, didn't make it to the other bank and landed in the water.
I think this scared her because the water was rushing by so fast and she couldn't touch the bottom. The poor gal clung to the bank with all her might. I was encouraging her to climb the bank, but didn't really see how she was going to get out. Before panic could set in (for me), a nice man noticed what had happened. He jumped the trench and pulled Perdi right up! He said he was used to rescuing his friend's dog, so it was not big deal. But Perdi thought it was a big deal and gave him a couple sweet kisses on the face.
Sometimes I wonder about that dog. She is quite inquisitive and not scared of water at all. Even after falling in the trench, she was splashing around in the shallow part of the crossing only a minute later!